What is this good for?

This generator simply creates custom sized paper templates (a.k.a. nets) for paper models, such as boxes or envelops. It does the math and all the drawing work for you.

Some of the uses for these templates:

A nice gift wrap for a present with an irregular shape, for example a sphere or a jar.

Professional packaging.

Storage, for example: create card boxes to store all the assets from a board game.

DIY decoration

Printing

The template will have the exact size you enter, but you need to turn off scaling when printing.

When you’re printing from Adobe Acrobat reader, set page scaling to none in the print options dialogue box (example)

Boxes need quite a lot of paper. Using a standard printer, the biggest you can print is a 6 × 6 × 6 cm box. (or 2½ × 2½ × 2½ inch). The first things that will fall of the page first are the glue strips and dust-flaps. That’s okay, these don’t need to be exact.

Tips

Use heavy paper for folding: the heaviest my printer can still manage is 180 grams. (Normal office paper is 80 grams)

Use a scissors and a ruler to cut halfway through the dotted lines (scoring). This will give very sharp folds.

Or, use a dryed-up ballpoint to create scores.

Copyright

All templates are CC-zero. This means that the templates can by used, even commercially, without my permission. Please, read the details at Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal

The design and implementation of the site is copyright by M. H. van der Velde.

Patterns

The template maker creates just a blank template. If you want a nice pattern you can either:

Print on the same sheet twice. The first time you print the pattern, the second time you print the template on the backside.

Print directly on scrap-book paper or any other paper that already has a pattern.

Glue the template onto a piece of gift-wrap. This creates nice, thick paper.

Open the PDF in Inkscape or Illustrator and edit the template. Print on a letter-sized label and glue on cardbord.